The Good News: Real-Time Web Analytics

One of the huge drawbacks of Google Analytics when compared with other Web analytics tools was that it only offered credible data from the previous day. There was no real way to track same-day stats or the impact of content shared on social media sites.

If Google has switched the feature on for you, you'll be able to see it by switching over to the new version of Google Analytics by clicking on "New Version" in the top right-hand corner of the page. If it is enabled, you will see it by clicking on your Dashboards tab if you do it now, or your Home tab if you are trying it out next week.Google calls this Real-Time, and it may be the excuse you need to nuke your paid Web analytics solution.

Google has only turned on the feature for select users, so if you don't see it, don't panic. You can sign up .

Real-Time Analytics allows you to instantly track the efficacy of social media campaigns. By tagging links that you share on Facebook and Twitter with tags related to your marketing campaign, you can track the exact impact of those links. If you need to know how to do that, .